Lesson Transcript

Judith: And have you done the exercises in the learning center to improve your retention?

Chuck: If so, then you should know that Maria has been interrogated by a police officer who seems very interested in her walks by the Spray River.

Judith: Right now, the conversation has turned to Maria’s boyfriend. This was an occasion to learn the full forms of [Sein] to be in the last lesson. In this lesson, we shall learn more German conjugation.

Chuck: Now let’s listen to the dialogue. We always read the dialogue first at normal speed, then slowly and finally provide the translation.

Judith: If you’d like to hear the dialogue more often, there is a dialogue-only recording at germanpod101.com. At germanpod101, you can also listen to each line of dialogue separately to improve your pronunciation.

M: ... Yes, sometimes we also go to the Spree together. That is not a crime, is it?

P: Nein, natürlich ist es kein Verbrechen.

P: No, of course it isn't a crime.

Judith: And now die Vokabeln. The vocabulary.

VOCAB LIST

Judith: First word [Designer]

Chuck: Designer.

Judith: [Designer, Designer]

Chuck: [Is that der, die oder das]

Judith: [Der] masculine and the plural is the same as with all words ending in er. Next [Aber]

Chuck: But, however

Judith: [Aber, aber] Next [Er]

Chuck: He

Judith: [Er, er] Next [Von]

Chuck: Of

Judith: [Von, von] Next [Zuhause]

Chuck: Home

Judith: [Zuhause, zuhause] And this word is neuter [Das Zuhause]. Next [Aus]

Chuck: From

Judith: [Aus] Next [Also]

Chuck: So

Judith: [Also, also] Next [Viel]

Chuck: Much

Judith: [Viel, viel] Next [Ihr]

Chuck: You, plural

Judith: [Ihr, ihr] Next [Manchmal]

Chuck: Sometimes

Judith: [Manchmal, Manchmal] Next [Kein]

Chuck: No or not any

Judith: [Kein, kein] Next [Natürlich]

Chuck: Of course

Judith: [Natürlich, natürlich] And that’s it for the vocabulary.

Chuck: [Natürlich this is]

CULTURAL SECTION

Judith: Now how about we talk about Berlin?

Chuck: Now that sounds like fun.

Judith: Our story is situated in Berlin and we are situated in Berlin too, germanpod101 is recorded in Berlin. I am not a native of the city but I really like it and it’s really a city with a fascinating history and a really great city. What do you think of it?

Chuck: I think it’s pretty amazing. I mean, the unification of east and west also gives it a very interesting feel to it.

Judith: And there are lots of sites. So we always see lots of tourists but then the city is quite large. So you don’t have to see tourists if you don’t want to.

Chuck: Right. I think it’s also because we spend most of the time in winter just the center of the city where you have lots of tourists all time.

Judith: Yeah but also lots of good restaurants and good places to go in the evening.

Chuck: Yeah that’s also pretty amazing how cheap it is in Berlin. It’s really the cheapest city in all of Western Europe, the cheapest major city.

Judith: I would definitely say so yes. It’s probably because of the unification. In the Eastern part of Berlin, there is lot of empty houses.

Chuck: Yeah so it’s really interesting because you get the feel of the west and some of the prices of the east.

Judith: And that’s also the cheap rent that gets artists to move here. When I have guests, I sometimes play this game. We just walk around and count the art galleries and there are so many of them.

Chuck: Yeah is it an art gallery or hairdresser game right?

Judith: Yeah.

Chuck: That’s quite popular at the Web startups. You could almost call this Web 2.0 capital of Europe because one thing that’s nice about a web startup here is that you would be getting your income from all over the world but yet your expenses are really low.

Judith: Yes it’s a great place if you have an income that comes from elsewhere. If your income is coming from Berlin, then you have a slightly bigger problem because unemployment is quite high compared to the rest of Germany, I mean the western part of Germany.

Chuck: Yeah it’s also quite hard to come to Berlin to look for work because the employment rate is higher here.

Judith: Yeah.

Chuck: But as far as like doing stuff, its amazing city and also great for the tourists because well things are cheap even like hotel rooms and such.

Judith: And so many things to see.

Chuck: Unless you’re staying in the [Adlon]

LESSON FOCUS

Judith: Now let’s talk about the present tense. In the last lesson, we talked about the forms of [Sein] to be and now we should look at regular verbs.

Chuck: In this lesson, we’ve come across the rest of the regular present tense that is the paradigm of changes that regular German verbs will undergo. If you use them when talking about it, what is happening now are what happens regularly as talk today was mostly about habits. Notice that in German, there is no grammatical difference between I am working and I work.

Judith: So I will give you an example of how to conjugate regular verbs and the present tense. As an example of verb, I decided to take [Suchen]

Chuck: To search.

Judith: So you go [Ich suche]

Chuck: I search

Judith: With [e] ending, oh and it could also be I am searching. So don’t forget that and then the next form is [Du suchst]

Chuck: You search.

Judith: Informally important to say to because the [Du] is always an informal address. Then [Er, sie] or [Es sucht]

Chuck: He, she or it searches.

Judith: [Wir suchen]

Chuck: We search.

Judith: [Ihr sucht]

Chuck: You search.

Judith: And [Sie suchen]

Chuck: You formally search.

Judith: Or they search. It’s the same. Now [I chose suchen] because well it’s representative of all regular verbs. You might as well use [Denken] or [Gehen] or [Kennen, kochen, machen, passieren, schreiben, stehen, wohnen] or any other regular German verb because they all work the same but there is very small change you have to make if you choose [Arbeiten]. For pronunciation reasons, [Arbeiten] retains the E when the ending doesn’t contain one so that you say [Du arbeitest] instead of [Du arbeitst] for example.

Chuck: Yeah actually have been saying that wrong for the last 3 years. So get this right your first time.

Judith: It’s really quite logical. We just don’t want to have an ending like [tst] That’s just hard to pronounce if you aspirate the Ts as you’re supposed to.

Chuck: Since these endings are used for all regular German verbs, it’s vital that you learn them by heart. The most effective way is probably to recite the forms of [Suchen] to yourself in the right order until they are really familiar and of course, do use the learning center for practice.

OUTRO

Judith: The learning center is really a great place. You can find exercises there and overviews of everything that we taught but also a complete flashcard system for example.

Chuck: Mark the words from in this lesson that you’ve trouble with and they will be added to your personal word bank where you can keep practicing them even as you study other lessons.

Judith: And to make sure you pronounce the words correctly, every flashcard comes with sound.

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